


falser than vows made in wine

by gladdecease



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Community: prompt_in_a_box, Gen, Truth Serum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-01
Updated: 2012-08-01
Packaged: 2017-11-11 06:17:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/475430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gladdecease/pseuds/gladdecease
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I cultivated this variety of monkshood myself, looking for a way to make the lethal properties more... potent.  I was surprised to discover that, rather than poisoning the victim, this variety has an effect on werewolves not unlike the effect sodium pentathol has on humans."</p>
            </blockquote>





	falser than vows made in wine

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for "Fury" all over this fic, guys! Along with some speculation about things that may or may not happen later this season. I'm just guessing, but what fun, _twisted_ guessing it is. c:
> 
> For Round 52 of Prompt-in-a-Box, where we could use prompts from any previous year. This fic is inspired by (and takes its title from) a prompt from the February 2009 round, which can be found in the end notes.

Derek wakes wrapped up in rope with a too-familiar bitter taste in the back of his mouth, something he associates with being paralyzed by the kanima. He tries to move, and is surprised to realize he can, though not much. The ropes are tight and heavy, and when he strains against them something stings at his skin. He looks down to see they've been coated with a purple powder. Wolfsbane.

And that's not the only wolfsbane here, he realizes. The air around him is cloudy with smoke, not unlike the night of the rave, when Argent's wife tried to kill Scott. It's a different kind of wolfsbane; he feels weak, but not like he can't breathe, and that gets his hackles rising. If they're not using wolfsbane to kill him, then what _is_ it for?

"Not again," someone groans beside him. Derek glances to his side and realizes that Scott is here.

"It's not the same kind of wolfsbane," Derek says reluctantly. "It's not going to kill you."

"Great," Scott mutters, "So the Argents get to torture us to death instead."

"Why would the Argents - " bother capturing you, Derek wants to ask. Except no, no he doesn't, he's been keeping his mouth shut about knowing that Scott's working for the enemy, using him to feed false information to them. Saying anything now would ruin that. He bites back the sentence, or tries to, but he suddenly can't shut up. "Why would they." God, is this how it feels to be Stiles? "How _could_ they use kanima venom on us? Jackson doesn't have a master anymore."

A door on the far side of the room opens, and Gerard Argent walks in, a mask covering his nose and mouth. "We have our ways," he says cryptically.

I'll bet you do, Derek thinks, except no, once again he's saying things he didn't intend to say. "What the hell," he mutters, "why can't I shut up?"

"Noticed that, have you?" Gerard says, sounding amused. "I cultivated this variety of monkshood myself, looking for a way to make the lethal properties more... potent. I was surprised to discover that, rather than poisoning the victim, this variety has an effect on werewolves not unlike the effect sodium pentathol has on humans."

"Sodium pentathol?" Scott wonders, and gets an automatic response.

"Truth serum, sort of. It makes it harder for you to lie. Which means this isn't a torture session," Derek realizes. "It's an interrogation."

"Very good," Gerard says, condescending as you please. "Which isn't to say that we won't be killing you eventually, but for the moment, our leader wants answers more than vengeance." Behind him, the door opens again to let in Allison Argent, who looks absolutely bloodthirsty. Gerard nods his head a little, deferring to her, and she approaches Derek.

"Allison - " Scott starts, but Derek's laughing, sharp and humorless, and can't hear anything else he says.

"Vengeance," he repeats. "You think _you're_ the ones who deserve vengeance here?"

"Yes," she hisses, and her anger is like a newly forged blade, red hot and dangerously sharp. She reminds him of nothing so much as Kate. This comment gets a twitch out of Allison as she visibly holds herself back from attacking him. "I'm going to get revenge for what you did to my mother, but first I want to know _why_."

Derek has no idea what she's talking about.

"Don't play cute," Allison says slowly, pulling out a wicked knife and placing it at his throat. "Tell me: why did you bite her?"

...he didn't? He hasn't bitten anyone since Boyd.

"Liar!" The edge of the blade slides against his skin, painful in a way he isn't expecting from a blade that sharp. It's probably laced with a more deadly strain of wolfsbane, since the cut doesn't start healing right away either.

"Allison, please, stop!" Scott - seriously, _Scott_ of all people - protests. "Your grandfather said this smoke is like truth serum, he _can't_ be lying!"

"He has to be!" Allison insists. "She told me, she left a note that _said_ \- " Her hand and voice tremble.

"It _is_ still possible for them to lie," Gerard says in an undertone. "He was right, earlier, when he said it just becomes more difficult for them. They have to focus. Keep them from focusing, you can keep them from lying." Allison nods as he speaks with increasing certainty, and applies the knife to the other side of Derek's neck, harder this time. He hisses, flinching away from the sting.

"He's not lying!" Scott insists. "Please, Allison, don't hurt - "

"Oh, what do you care if she hurts me," Derek snaps, and struggles to contain the rest of the sentence. But for all that anger is his anchor, he's too mad to stop himself from saying, "you're working for the Argents anyway!"

 _"What?"_ Allison asks, puling back.

"You knew?" Scott asks weakly.

"Only after the fight at the sheriff's office," Derek mutters. "I overheard you talking. You only joined the pack to spy on us for Gerard."

"I - he was threatening my mom!"

"I don't care _why_ you did it!" All that matters is that Scott betrayed him. The first person Derek had wanted to trust since he realized Peter had killed his sister betrayed him. Worse yet, betrayed his pack.

"Okay, stop, stop! None of this matters!" Allison shoves her knife up against Derek's jaw, keeping him from speaking. When he's silent, she lowers the blade slightly. "Only an alpha can bite to turn; if you didn't bite my mother, then who did?"

Scott starts to say something, but it suddenly occurs to Derek that _Peter_ might have, and that shocks Scott into silence.

"Pet - your uncle? No, he's been dead for _weeks_ , my mother was only bitten the other day - "

"He's not dead anymore." After a moment's resistance, Derek admits, "Lydia used me to resurrect him on the full moon."

"What?"

"Interesting," Gerard says, approaching Derek. "You don't sound pleased by that, Derek." He forces Allison to step back and takes control of the interrogation, no longer playing the helpful adviser.

Of course he isn't pleased. Why should he be happy that his sister's killer is back from the dead?

"Well, if nothing else, it means you're not the last member of your family left alive. Doesn't that mean something to a _pack_ creature like you?" The way he spits out the word "pack", like it's something vile and filthy, makes Derek want to bite his face off, but he settles for growling low in his throat. Gerard, unconcerned, repeats the question.

It's a dumb question, considering that Peter's just going to kill Derek the second he gets the chance.

"Now why would he do that? You're the last member of his family left alive too."

Because... he still wants revenge.

"Revenge?"

"For the fire," Scott says while Derek's struggling to keep the words in. "That's all he's wanted since he got burned, to kill the people who killed his - but why would he want to kill you for that?" he asks Derek, changing trains of thought mid-sentence.

No. Derek grits his teeth. No, he is not - not here. Not in front of these people. On this, at least, he'll keep his silence.

"Good question, Scott." Gerard leans in far too close and hisses, almost inaudibly through the mask, "Why _would_ he want to kill you for that?" When Derek continues to resist, the Argent pinches his nose shut, forcing him to open his mouth to breathe. " _Why._ "

With his mouth already open, it's too easy to blurt out, "Because it's my fault!" The room goes silent. "Kate never would have known about all of the house's exits if I hadn't shown her - they might have made it out if she hadn't, if we hadn't been - "

"Oh my god," Allison whispers as the penny drops.

Derek twists out of Gerard's grip with a frustrated cry. "You don't need me to tell you this, she was doing it on your orders!"

"Oh, not _mine_ ," Gerard says, expression guarded. "By that age, the girls who've shown enough initiative are working on their own. Besides," he adds, disgusted, "I'd never ask my child to degrade herself like that with a monster like you."

Yes, compared to a woman who'd burn down a house full of innocents to just to get at the werewolves among them, _he's_ the monster. Gerard rears back like he wants to slap Derek, or maybe rip his throat out, but Allison interrupts.

"This doesn't matter," she says coldly. Too coldly; it's a front. Just looking at her, Derek can tell she's shaken by this new piece of her aunt's story. Good. "Shut _up_ ," she snaps at him. "None of this is relevant; if Peter only came back on the full moon he couldn't have bitten my mother, sh-she killed herself that night to keep from turning. Unless there's another alpha in town, it _has_ to be you, Derek."

Which is all logical and well thought out, but doesn't change the fact that Derek _didn't do it._ He doesn't know who did, but -

"Why don't you take off his gas mask and ask him yourself?"

Everyone looks at Scott, then follows his gaze to Gerard, who backs slowly towards the door.

"I bet you told them you needed the mask because your lungs can't handle the smoke anymore," Scott says quietly. "You might still be able to fool your family with the weak, vulnerable grandpa act, but not me."

Gerard rattles the doorknob almost desperately, but it won't open under his twitching fingers.

"Gerard," Allison says, the start of an order, but Scott speaks up again.

"You haven't taken any of your pills since you caught us, have you? I wonder what happens when you miss a dose."

His fingers aren't the only things twitching now, uncontrollable spasms spreading up his arms as bones shift and muscles rearrange. With a snarl, he rips off the mask, revealing a mouthful of fangs. He growls, "Boy, I should have killed you and your dumb bitch of a mother the second I thought you suspected," and that's when Jackson bursts through the ceiling, fully shifted, hissing as he gets between Allison, the only armed person in the room, and her grandfather. Hunters spill into the room, Stiles on their heels, but they're already gone, escaped through the hole the kanima created. Wolfsbane smoke drifts in their wake, and after a moment spent staring dumbly at the sight Allison and her father order their troops after them.

"What did I _tell_ you," Stiles crows at Argent's retreating back. Waving the fast-diluting smoke out of his face with one hand, he takes a Swiss Army knife to the ropes binding Scott. Far too excited given the context, he says, "Dude, you have _no_ idea how glad I am you got him to break, I thought I was gonna have to fight my way through the mob of hunters to save you guys."

Derek snorts derisively. Stiles pauses, a ridiculous moue on his face. "Oh, come _on_. Even under truth serum?"

"Shut up, Stiles," Derek says, and gratefully takes his own advice.

**Author's Note:**

> I pray you, do not fall in love with me, for I am falser than vows made in wine.  
> \- William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 3.5


End file.
